


Bíonn gach tosú lag

by lubilu17



Series: I Rebel; Therefore I Exist [4]
Category: Hamilton-Miranda
Genre: Angst, Herc speaks Gaelic like a boss, M/M, Minor Character Death, based off caw.chan's rebel AU from instagram, bc it's actually the greatest, eh nvm, go check it out, its brought up quite a bit, like it made me sad to write, so beware of that, they're all sad, this is actually really sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-12 03:10:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11728263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lubilu17/pseuds/lubilu17
Summary: At a young age Hercules discovered embroidery, rich coloured threads contrasting against ivory cotton. He could create pictures more beautiful than a nightingales song, he could bring scenes to life with only a needle and thread, he could drown out the shouts with the repetitive pattern of sewing. If he tried hard enough he was able to recreate the rolling hills that surrounded the house, purposely avoiding stitching the small stone farmhouse into his perfect image of home. At a young age Hercules discovered that home was not the picture perfect cottage his family lived in but the vivid colours of silk, tickle of grass on his bare legs when sitting in the hills surrounding the farm and the soft laugh of his mother.





	Bíonn gach tosú lag

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual completely based of caw.can's rebel AU from instagram.
> 
> Bíonn gach tosú lag-Every beginning is weak (Irish Gaelic)

One of Hercules' first memories of his mother were of when she would sit with him and his brother and just sew or knit. She would make them new clothes, new toys, new blankets. The three of them would never talk, just sit in silence calmly, sewing, reading, drawing or whatever activities took the young boys interests at the time. The calm before the storm.

At a young age Hercules discovered embroidery, rich coloured threads contrasting against ivory cotton. He could create pictures more beautiful than a nightingales song, he could bring scenes to life with only a needle and thread, he could drown out the shouts with the repetitive pattern of sewing. If he tried hard enough he was able to recreate the rolling hills that surrounded the house, purposely avoiding stitching the small stone farmhouse into his perfect image of home. At a young age Hercules discovered that home was not the picture perfect cottage his family lived in but the vivid colours of silk, tickle of grass on his bare legs when sitting in the hills surrounding the farm and the soft laugh of his mother.

On the odd occasion Hercules did stitch the cottage into his image of home there were never any figures, no family to live in the perfect image of home. No the people who lived in the house we far from perfect. The stench of alcohol would often fill the kitchen, the living room, his parents bedroom in the evenings, after his father came back into the house after a day working in the fields surrounding their house. The sounds of shouting would surround the two young boys hidden away in their room, shouting in two languages, one, Gaelic, sounding raw and perfect to Hercules's ears- that language would always be home to him- the other, English, he understood perfectly yet somehow it still felt foreign. Insults thrown back and forth, his mothers Gaelic perfectly weaponised against his fathers English.

It was the times spent with just his mother stitching in silence that Hercules would look back on later in life as the best moments in his childhood. Stitching the tapestry of his life, rolling fields with a tiny stone house.

 

At fifteen Hercules, his brother and his mother fled the animosity of his father, leaving their country behind, leaving the language of home behind. The Mulligan family moved to a quaint town on the outskirts of New York City. The two boys venturing into the city on weekends and school breaks. It was surrounded by buildings, cars, life, the complete opposite of their farm in Ireland, solitary, unseen, hidden. 

Hercules upgraded from small embroidery projects to clothes and stuffed toys. He'd spend hours designing shirts for himself and his brother and dresses and skirts for his mother. He'd make toys with full sets of clothes for the children of his neighbours or the younger siblings of his friends. The tiny, stone house was replaced by the pale family home from a far away country in Hercules' tapestry.

 

He was sixteen when his mother finally went to the doctors to inquire about the headaches she had been getting for months. He was sixteen when his mother was diagnosed with a growing brain aneurysm, unlike Hercules it hadn't been a surprise to his mother who had known about the aneurysm for years but believed it to be dormant. He was sixteen when, for the first time in his life he had had to choose between the medical bills for his mothers operation or food for himself for a week. He was sixteen when him and his brother started to share meals to save money for the surgery. He was sixteen when he started to work four jobs a week to be able to help save his mother.

Minutes. That's all it took to rip his home away from him. The aneurysm had ruptured only weeks before her surgery. Her medication hadn't been able to prevent the inevitable. It had taken her in minutes. A total of seven minutes after her first sound of distress and her final haggard breath. A total of eleven minutes after her first sound of distress and the sound of sirens, a saviour four minutes too late. A saviour, no longer an angel sent from heaven but a demon sent to torture Hercules only telling him what he already knew.

It would be months before Hercules got a full nights sleep. Each time he closed his eyes the ambulance would get quicker, yet never quick enough. He would feel his mother's last breath as she rested her head in his lap, then not even seconds later the sirens would sound and he would scream. His screams would wake up his brother, now Hercules' legal guardian, from his own troubled slumber. It would be even longer before Hercules would speak a word to anybody but his brother. It was brushed off as childish grief as he would sit and stitch the same green fields, the same townhouse, the same words round the image 'Bíonn gach tosú lag', 'Every beginning is weak'. Four words in the language of home, four words to remind Hercules of the four minutes he sat with his dead mother's head on his lap, his own cries echoing in his ears. Four words. A word for each minute.

 

He was nineteen when he moved from the small town on the edge of the city into the city itself to study. His brother had pushed him to go and study history or Gaelic or even both, subjects Hercules had been gifted at at since a young, being fluent in the language and interested in history. However, Hercules had a different idea, an idea honouring his mother. Rather than studying the subjects his brother wanted him to study Hercules studied fashion and textiles, relishing in the way the simplicity of the needle and thread reminded him of the quiet days spent with his mother.

He was nineteen when he met John Laurens, a boy broken almost beyond repair. He took it in his stride, caring for the man. They worked up some kind of system for when everything got too much, when Hercules couldn't talk, when John would just sit and stare in the mirror writing down all of the flaws his father would have pointed out if he had been there. The same bullet point was always at the top each time, just one word, one word that made Hercules' heart break for John and the torment he had been through if that is what he believed was wrong with him.

 

At twenty Hercules met Alexander Hamilton, a hurricane of a man, who left only silence after his words. A man whose smile never reached his eyes, who would panic every time it began to rain, who couldn't stand the colour yellow. They'd spend their time playing video games on the console in the dorm common room. He'd become the perfect model for Hercules to practice making his clothes on. Alexander managed to join his and John's group of some unnameable grief that all three of them shared.

 

At twenty one Hercules met Lafayette. A man whose flirting smile could never cover the lack of spark in his eyes. A man whose composure would only break in the presence of Hercules. A man who to every stranger looked joyous but was just as broken as Hercules. He would comfort Lafayette as the younger would shake and cry through withdrawal from whatever he had been hooked into before moving to America, Lafayette had never told him and Hercules wasn't going to force him. He would smile when, on certain days of the year, Lafayette would tuck a white lily behind his ear. 'One for his mother, one for his father, one for his grandfather' he would say with no other explanation. He would hold Lafayette when he broke down over a girl named Adrienne who,from what he could make out from broken English and tear stained French, had hurt the boy in his arms-because that's what he really was, what they both were, two boys overtaken by grief. Never in his life had Hercules wanted to hurt a person more than he did Adrienne, in his eyes anyone who hurt Lafayette was no more than a monster.

At twenty one Hercules realised he was in love for the first time in his life. In love with the way Lafayette would tie his hair up without fail everyday with a black silk ribbon, the flick in his wrist as he lined his eyes with a precision Hercules could never manage, the light that Lafayette slowly gained in his eyes the longer he spent free of whatever demons he had escaped of back where he had come from, the way the left corner of his lips curled up in a dangerous smirk, the way he would sometimes sort with laughter before catching himself and just close his eyes, bow his head and smile, the way he could smile at Hercules and it seemed they were the only two people in the world.

 

At twenty seven Hercules watched as his new family completed his tapestry. The green field, now filled with flowers, glass sculptures surround the townhouse, grey storm clouds high above them all, surrounded by four words 'Bíonn gach tosú lag'. It was Hercules' perfect family, his perfect home. But nobody had ever told him that perfect never lasts.


End file.
